With the recent wheelbarrow full of building and renovating shows we have been spending a lot of time starting sentences with….In our next house…..
We have never renovated but currently live in a house that we built a few years ago. It was our first building experience and was a steep learning curve!
I know…. that the more you buy yourself, the more you save. We sourced and purchased everything we could ourselves and literally saved thousands. Don’t just rely on the costs and items the builder specifies. Ask if you can provide your own items and they can deduct them from the build cost. Internal and external doors, lights, floor coverings, bathroom fixtures including towel racks and toilet paper holders even the kitchen sink. Not only did we save money on the actual “builders cost” for these items but we got exactly what we wanted and not the limited range the builder provided.
I know….that the more you do yourself, the more you save. We did all the landscaping, mailbox, retaining walls, driveway, clothes line and even some cleaning ourself. This also meant that we could delay some costs until the end of the build time. For example, instead of outlaying for turf months before we needed it and whilst we had a lot of other expenses, we could wait until we had the money and were ready for it.
I know….sometimes bigger isn’t better. We really did our homework when it came to choosing a builder. Lots of the larger builders had beautiful display homes and cheap prices on display but underneath the fine print were long build times and hidden costs. We went with a smaller, family owned builder and had our whole house finished in under 5 months. Whenever we wanted to speak to someone we could speak to the owner of the company and not get referred to a random middle manager.
I know….little things matter. If that crooked tile is bugging you when it is laid, it will still be bugging you eight years down the track. Fix it before you move in!
I know…there are some things better to buy now not later. Putting in airconditioning was going to cost us a small fortune. With all the other budget blowouts it just seemed like too much money at the time. Now, a few years later, it is going to cost us double the price to get half the size airconditioners. What would have been a simple job whilst building is now almost impossible. The initial cost whilst building would of cost us a few extra dollars a month in our mortgage repayments and now if we want it, we have to find the money upfront!
I know…I loved every stressful, exciting, proud and exhilerating moment of it.
I know… don’t want to move house but
I know…I would do it all again.
Linking up with “Things I Know”
I know…that the house above is not mine. I know…that it is for sale if you have a spare 58 million dollars here
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We build our house ourselves too. Hubby is an architect and a builder so he has contacts and we saved up on having to pay someone else to design our place as well. While we saved $ lots of time was put in – for instance he laid the floors and it took weeks to finish, I had to help do the builder’s clean (yuck no fun) and was it worth it? Maybe yes. But I wouldn’t do it all again. I can’t imagine going through it all over again, not seeing my husband on the weekends so he can work on the house, and having to pack, move and unpack again. But, having said that I do love our place. xx
We rent so I haven’t gotten to experience the stress and excitement of building our own home, although I DO know what it will look like if we ever get the chance
They say the most stressful things you can do in life is build a house, plan a wedding and I can’t remember the other thing right now. I dream of the day when we build, stress and all
My husband and I are addicted to all those renovation shows too! We have been tossing up between building and renovating and buying for years. We have just decided to sell and buy because we just don’t have the energy and the drive at the moment to go through the building process – but I would love to build something of my own, one day! Good on you for already doing so and for being willing to do it all over again.
I think people who renovate are so inspirational… Good on you for doing it. The sense of achievement must be amazing. I’m too chicken to take on anything like that…
May you create a lifetime of happy memories in your home.
Bigger is not always better. We have learned the hard way. We built our house and did a lot of it ourselves, but it is too big for what we need, and in these economic conditions, we don’t want to have so much tied up so we are selling.
When we finally sell, we will build again. Renovate actually and extend to a more modest house and we plan to source everything we can as cheap as possible. Not to say using cheap products but there is quality out there, you just have to spend the time to find it!
Good on you!
I’ll be sitting on the couch eagerly on Sunday night to see who wins the block, I don’t know what I am going to do with my time when it finishes. We built our home and love that it’s ours, how we want it, but I am forever wanting to redecorate rooms.
We’ve looked at building but haven’t found any land around where we’d like to live. We’d be looking at knocking something down and building again, and that starts to get very very expensive. My brother-in-law is a builder, but I don’t know that involving family in something as stressful as building a house would be a good thing!
Love this post! We were initially going to build before we bought the house we’re now in, but it didn’t work out. Well done for doing it. Really wish we had have now!
Off to find that spare $58 mil!
We live in a renovaters delight at the moment and ugh, it sucks. I think I would prefer to just build and get exactly what I want, rather than trying to fix this place up.
Some day we’ll build!
I imagine that building would be incredibly exciting and stressful all at once!
Thanks for joining in